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The attractions of solar power's enormous benefits have led
scientists to race to find a way to create inexpensive, optimally efficient
way solar cells. This venture has been broadly and avidly taken on for many
years by numerous scientists, who have come up with different ways of
creating solar cells. But, none of them are really cost-effective or
sufficiently usable. Recently, it has been found that silicon microwires may
be the solution. Efforts to develop ultra-thin wires that convert sunlight
into electricity have been happening for quite a while in the solar power
research field, but a new method for growing the wires involving silicon
microwires, has roughly doubled their conversion efficiency and may be the
key to advancing further. "All wires thus far have had 1 or 2 percent
efficiency [at the array level] with fundamental questions about whether
they could ever go higher," says Nathan Lewis, a chemist at Caltech who coauthored the study, which appears in *Science.*" It is possible that it can go all the way up to 10% efficiency
levels. These stages have never been reached before especially not with such
an inexpensive method.
Silicon nanowires are usually grown from a silicon substrate with the help
of tiny gold droplets. Under high temperatures, a single wire will quickly
sprout from each droplet like a blade of grass. Gold is an excellent
catalyst for wire growth, but it also introduces impurities that are
generally believed to inhibit electron transport within the wires, reducing
their overall efficiency. By using copper as a better, cheaper alternative,
efficiency rates nearly doubled from the previous wires that came from the
gold, because of higher silicon purity and increased electron transport
capacity. With the development of this new technology, we could be well on
our way to establishing solar power panels throughout the world, at a much
more reasonable price and an excellent usability with innumerous benefits.
an inexpensive method.
Silicon nanowires are usually grown from a silicon substrate with the help
of tiny gold droplets. Under high temperatures, a single wire will quickly
sprout from each droplet like a blade of grass. Gold is an excellent
catalyst for wire growth, but it also introduces impurities that are
generally believed to inhibit electron transport within the wires, reducing
their overall efficiency. By using copper as a better, cheaper alternative,
efficiency rates nearly doubled from the previous wires that came from the
gold, because of higher silicon purity and increased electron transport
capacity. With the development of this new technology, we could be well on
our way to establishing solar power panels throughout the world, at a much
more reasonable price and an excellent usability with innumerous benefits.
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